Guest blogger Professor James Hough, Chief Executive Officer of Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), describes first hand his experience of international research pooling.

One of the ways in which Scotland has maintained and strengthened its world leading position in university research is through the establishment of research pools (Ed’s note: as seen in last week’s ScotIndia visit). 

During my time working in research I have witnessed improvements in the way in which universities in Scotland work together.  Over the last six years approximately 14 research pools in a range of subjects have been created.  The earliest of these were SUPA, Scotchem the chemistry pool and SAGES the earth sciences pool. 

Each pool consists of  several Scottish universities.  What’s been rewarding is that the work of the research pools now extends far beyond Scotland.  In fact it is this international aspect to the research pools that’s so important for the future of the Scottish higher education system and the Scottish economy.

Physical science in Scotland has being growing in strength for the last fifty years.  I believe that much of this is because of international collaborations involved in particle physics, nuclear physics and astronomy. 

These collaborations are essential to provide the resource for physicists who are striving to understand the fundamental laws that govern the universe and its constituents.

Therefore research groups inside SUPA not only collaborate on an inter-university basis but are collaborating with groups from universities in Europe, the USA, India and China.  Accessing European framework funding strongly encourages networking and collaborations between research groups.  The Scottish physics community, with its strong internal network, has made excellent use of the opportunities with a growing collaborative grant income – currently more than £7.6m – being developed.

Another satisfying development is that research in almost all scientific areas is becoming much more cross disciplinary – thus the pools in physics, chemistry, engineering, energy and the life sciences have an ever growing number of collaborative ventures some of which have strong international connections. This also applies to their knowledge transfer activities and industrial involvement, areas of priority for most pooling collaborations.

An example of such a venture is the Science Bridges project in photonics (SU2P) which is funded by Research Councils UK, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council. Based on the working relationships built up originally by members of SUPA, the Universities of Strathclyde, St Andrews, Heriot-Watt and Glasgow, together with Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology, are collaborating in a project to foster scientific links, to support industrially-relevant joint research and commercialisation and entrepreneurship in photonics and its applications in physics, engineering, energy and the life sciences.

SU2P is in effect an international research pool, linking Scottish researchers with researchers in two of the most prestigious universities in the USA.  This collaboration includes:

- The funding of entrepreneurial fellows to work in the US Universities on high technology industrially relevant/cross disciplinary projects.

- The funding of exchange visits for academics.

- The involvement of local Scottish companies in the collaboration.

- The setting up of an investor network which aims to break down the barriers between academia and the investment community to help realise new commercial opportunities based on Scotland’s photonics research.

To ensure our pools continue to attract international researchers it’s vital research student training of the highest quality is provided. 

International links are highly important.  I am really proud that in 2011 SUPA had 414 applicants from 63 countries for our prize studentship competition and many of the winning students are now researching as part of international projects.

In my view international collaboration is of major importance to the future of our research, knowledge exchange and training, and it is encouraging to see its importance is recognised in the post 16 reform vision for Scotland.

 James Hough,
Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA)

Scottish Universities Physics Alliance website.